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Recap of the FaceBook Terms of Service SNAFU.

Posted by John on February 18th, 2009 at 2:46 pm · 5 Comments

1. Feb. 16, 2009: All your face are belong to us (even if your face quit):

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

2. Feb. 16, 2009: Two Copies, One Cup (Zuckerberg issues explanation for legal excrement):

One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment.

3. O RLY! (Tens of thousands join newly created Facebook group, People Against the new Terms of Service.

4. Feb. 18, 2009: I made you a ToS changez, but I eated it (Zuckerberg rolls back ToS changes):

Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.

Tags: Facebook · Social Web · Technology · Web 2.0

5 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Craig // Feb 18, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    and the users win. yay for internet complaining.

  • 2 ryan // Feb 18, 2009 at 9:39 pm

    This all takes me back to the heady days of the Pentium FDIV bug in 1994 when the collective outrage of a couple thousand geeks made Andy Grove, then CEO of Intel, cry. And I got a brand new Pentium 90Mhz CPU.

    All I got from this Facebook thing was a newer TOS. What a rip.

  • 3 John // Feb 18, 2009 at 10:24 pm

    I remain skeptical. I’m totally Google’s bitch, but I wonder how long these huge companies will continue to try to win consumer/customer trust, especially when there are so few alternatives. Corporations ultimately answer to the bottom line and to their investors. It’s just a matter of time that their interests and ours will diverge, methinks.

  • 4 Craig // Feb 18, 2009 at 10:59 pm

    @John

    Yeah, I agree. We may as well enjoy what little power we’ve got whilst it lasts.

  • 5 xJane // Feb 19, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    I didn’t even know about FB’s new ToS until you and Jana started tweeting about it. I have a problem with “click through” contracts: those that bind you simply by virtue of your access of the ‘site. But I also understand the purpose behind them. I think FB’s new ToS are absolutely unfair to the millions who use their service. And I’m loathe to give up my subscription—so I’d be sucked into the new restrictions.

    The clause that worries me the most is “or in connection with the […] promotion”. I can make an argument for all of the other clauses that FB is not really saying that they’re going to use our content (not that it doesn’t still allow them to but that it might not have been their intent).

    I’m glad that they changed it…we’ll see how long it lasts.

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